


laugh like me again

by Highsmith (quimtessence)



Category: The Breakfast Club (1985)
Genre: Character Study, Fandom5K 2019, Friendship, Gen, High School, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-04-06 06:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19056652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quimtessence/pseuds/Highsmith
Summary: It's gonna be alongweek.





	laugh like me again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Missy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/gifts).



> Title from "Almost (Sweet Music)" by Hozier.
> 
> ETA July 23rd 2019: I'm on [tumblr](https://rhubarbdreams.tumblr.com) again.

Monday.

Claire doesn't like wasting her time. As in, Allison walks past her wearing all black and that black gunk around her eyes, and it's not even first period. Claire maybe slams her locker door a little too hard. Hard enough to make her friends flinch. And then she has to smile wide and toothy to cover it up, the type of deflection which requires pearly-white teeth and perfectly-applied pink lipstick.

And, look, it's _fine_ , no big deal. Allison can do whatever the fuck she wants. It's none of Claire's business. Like, literally none of her business. She has no dog in this race, or whatever her dad tends to say. Only—

Only.

She had been very on board with Allison letting her do something _for_ her on Saturday, and now it's Monday and it's all different again, as in it's all the same as before Saturday, the status quo or whatever. So it was all for nothing, really.

Claire wouldn't even care, but, as previously mentioned, she does not enjoy wasting her time. Not like this. Maybe because it wasn't wasting time like she's goofing off with her friends and not doing homework. It's as if she'd gone to the mall with her girlfriends and spent hours helping one of them out to choose the perfect prom dress, only for it to get returned the next day, unworn and sad in its plastic packaging. That's a waste of her time, and whatever else people like Bender might think, her time is her own and _she's_ the only one who gets to decide what she wastes it on.

Most people in this school would give anything for some of it, Claire knows that for a _fact_. It's not being conceited if it's just plain _fact_.

At lunch, she sits in her usual seat, surrounded by all of her friends at their usual table, the one everyone is probably envious of, but the gossip and the giggles is all just white noise. She's barely listening, but nods in all the right places almost by design, and that seems to be enough.

She's not bored; that would be ridiculous. Her friends don't bore her, because they're her friends and that's not what friends do. But she does find herself zoning out, and somehow no one calls her out on it as long as she keeps nodding at all the right stuff. You'd think someone would notice, but if they do, no one says anything about it.

It's only later that it occurs to her she wouldn't really notice if they did anyway.

It should bother her, but it somehow... doesn't. Thinking about why that is makes her head hurt.

During homeroom it's even easier to daydream. Her thoughts circle around why no one noticed she'd been saying less during lunch, maybe throughout the entire day, which doesn't make her head hurt any less, but she's having trouble letting it go.

Thinking back on the hurtful things Bender had said on Saturday doesn't help. If things are needlessly hurtful, then they're unhelpful, therefore she's just plain not interested. But it does hover around the top of her head, this small thought that he might be right. Even after everything, she still has a suspicion, and that's unfair. Unfair not because it's her or whatever. She can get over herself just fine. It's just. It's unfair that she should be double-thinking everything about her friends of all people. Just because some burnout had something to say about it in detention.

She says bye to her friends and waits for her dad to pick her up. She watches their parents pick them up straight away, until the parking lot is peopled only by her and a few of the older kids who aren't waiting on rides. Which is when she spots Allison in a vacant part of the lot by herself.

Walking over is maybe a waste of time, too. Actually, she's sure of it.

Whatever happened on Saturday seems to have made Claire stupid about wasting her time altogether, though.

She walks over to Allison with as much intent as can be conveyed without looking like a total freak from the outside because she's still popular and normal Claire, but mostly because she wants to give Allison the time to panic and pretend she can't see her stomping over. It's plain enough to spot in Allison's eyes that she does see her, but if she's about to run away or pretend, then she's taking her sweet time about it. Overall, Claire might not have a plan, but she's walking on steadier feet. In fact, she hadn't realised her steps had been unsteady to begin with. Huh.

"Hi," she says when she's within a couple of feet of Allison, whose eyes are big and panicked and whose hands Claire notices as shaking badly. Still not running away, though.

If she didn't know any better, she'd think Allison were scared of her, but that's so outlandish it doesn't even make sense to consider.

She waits for Allison to say hi, or say anything. At all. Out of the corner of her eye, Claire spots the last of the stranglers taking off, but Allison just stares. It's not as off-putting as it might have been before Saturday, but it's pretty damn weird, the kind of weird that Claire would not normally want to be associated with, only she's taken a chance now and normal doesn't really seem to matter much when it's the five of them in any sort of permutation.

Finally, Allison mutters, "Hi." It's reedy and unbalanced, but Claire notices her hands aren't shaking anymore where they're clutching a couple of thick textbooks to her chest.

From somewhere behind them, Claire's dad's car horn suddenly sounds. Claire says, "How are you?" And Allison blinks owlishly, but says, "Fine." It's all very normal. Claire smiles without really thinking about it. Her teeth aren't out.

"You should come over and let me wash your face."

Allison could say all sorts of things about it, first of which would be a big, resounding _no_. Claire doesn't know a lot about empathy, not really, but she considers what she'd do in Allison's place, and that's probably a fair reaction. She's anxious for it to be the opposite.

For someone who realistically cares a whole bunch about what other people think, Claire isn't very well-versed in what other people feel. But she knows what she'd do in certain situations, even if maybe the reasons behind certain actions aren't always clear to her. Figuring out other people's motives has never seemed hard, but if Saturday's taught her anything it's that she's been making some assumptions she shouldn't have been making. Maybe. About certain people. Maybe a lot.

She waits for Allison to tell her no under the backdrop of the most obnoxious car horn in the history of the planet before Allison finally nods. It's slight, easy to miss if C laire hadn't been looking for it, yet beyond clear. Crystal.

If Claire's dad is surprised she's bringing someone over, he doesn't mention it.

*

Tuesday.

Hiding doesn't come naturally to Andy. Not really. Not like this.

Shermer is a weird fucking place as far as hiding places go.

As in, there's a couple of feet of space between the Art building and the annex where the unused labs sit that burnouts sometimes use as a place to smoke or smoke up during recess, but, as far as Andy's aware, no one uses it as a hiding spot between classes. He sort of banks on that being fact on his way there, the late bell ringing far too loudly.

He shares precisely two classes with Brian Johnson. That's two classes too many.

Andy's not a coward, but he sure as fuck does not know what he's supposed to do other than take a self-imposed time out. It's only fucking Tuesday, but it feels as if it's been an entire fucking week already.

Of course the space between buildings is occupied already. Of _fucking_ course.

Bender's... not his favourite person on a normal day. Everything's been less than normal since Saturday, and maybe even a while before that, but normal or not, it doesn't seem to make a difference when it comes to John Bender, because if anyone has a gift when it comes to getting underneath Andy's skin, it's got to be him for sure.

To absolutely no one's surprise, certainly not Andy's if anyone had mentioned it to him beforehand, Bender's skipping class to smoke in the exact same spot where Andy was looking to have a bit of an existential crisis. It's inconvenient, to say the least.

Detention was three days ago, Andy reminds himself. A lot can happen in three days, only it feels as if time has been on hold for that entire time while also being the longest stretch of time between two events in the history of the planet.

It doesn't help that Bender just sort of looks at him and doesn't say anything, just continues smoking and standing there, unperturbed. Andy needs to react in some way that isn't mirroring him, as in just fucking standing there as well, but it's hard to do that if he's getting nothing to react _to_.

Andy doesn't want to know what Bender is running away from. Because he is running away. It's obvious now. School is the place to run away to when home is too much, and this is the place to run away to when class is too much, and Andy kind of suspects there are other places Bender runs away to when even this becomes too much. His persona is just that, another thing, another mask, and Bender's just running away from it all all the fucking time. Andy kind of wants a piece of that right now, if he's being honest.

Instead he asks, "Can I have one?" Bender glances up at him from inspecting the truly fascinating ground, then carelessly to the side.

So, apparently, sharing a smoke isn't what they do anymore. Or not right now anyway. Not that smoking up once is a pattern for future consumption of any variety, but Andy knows Bender's heard of solidarity, and quietly sharing a smoke seems like something even he has maybe done before with his burnout, metalhead friends.

He scoffs at the slight and stares out at the side of the sports field he can see from where he's standing when from the corner of his eye he sees the corner of an open packet of cigarettes being presented to him. He turns to stare fully at Bender's offer, whose eyebrow is raised sardonically, but a free smoke is a free smoke, so Andy takes it only a little cautiously.

Then Bender offers him a lighter once he's put the packet away. Andy's definitely suspicious now.

As a rule, Andy doesn't smoke. He's an athlete and it's just not on. But he can make an exception. Dire circumstances, etcetera. He's new to this whole running away thing, but he's all in if he's giving it a go at all. For a little while, at least. For as long as it takes to get it out of his system maybe. Fuck if he knows.

They stand at opposite sides of the entrance to this strange alcove and smoke in mostly silence. As in, Andy's almost done and Bender's half-way through his second smoke, when Andy says, "What's your excuse?"

Bender cocks an eyebrow, and for a moment looks as if he's not about to deign to respond, but then finally says, "Excuse me?"

"For skipping. What's your excuse?"

He laughs. Bender laughs just like that. Like it's funny. Like, a full-bodied laugh comes out of him to shake his body all up. The rest of his cigarette falls in a puddle, but Bender hardly seems to notice.

Feeling himself reddening, Andy snaps, "It wasn't really that fucking funny."

"Well, you're a funny guy. Hilarious," Bender replies. Then, with a straight face, says, "I wasn't feeling like it. Class. Wouldn't call it an excuse."

Andy thinks that over. "OK, maybe not. But loads of people don't feel like it."

"What's that even mean?"

"Just that if everybody skipped 'cause they didn't feel like it, no one would be going to class at all."

"Spoken like someone who's never skipped in his life."

"Hey!" Andy protests. "I have to."

"For sure, buddy." Looks at the ground, then the wall right behind Andy.

He doesn't reach for his packet for another smoke, but takes out the lighter instead to play with it, lighting it and letting the flame go out as he's waving it around in the air in front of him.

"So what you're actually saying is, you have an excuse for ditching," he says completely out of the blue.

"I guess."

"Bullshit."

"Excuse you?"

"You're running the fuck away, so that's bullshit."

Andy grabs him by the lapels in an instant. It's so sudden it causes Bender to drop the lighter to the ground, Andy hearing hit the ground with a clack and barely missing the shallow puddle where Bender's cigarette went to die.

"Say that to me again," he grunts.

Bender looks him in the eyes and says, "Bull. Shit." Andy's knuckles are white where he's grabbing at his shirt, grip too tight, a second away from ripping fabric before he lets out enough to get colour back in the skin on the backs of his hands.

"Yeah?" Bender doesn't answer, but he doesn't try to move away either. "What do _you_ know about it?"

Bender blinks once, then his face contorts into an ugly smirk. "Plenty." He tsks. "Brian doesn't bite, unless you count getting nibbled upon by the human equivalent of a hamster. Then you're in _real_ trouble there, buddy." And he laughs once more.

Andy wishes he had the right words to convey both how Bender shouldn't be saying that about Brian and how that's exactly what Andy isn't doing because Andy doesn't run the fuck away. Except how he's doing that right now. Fuck.

He releases Bender and steps back to say, "What about it?" Not like an actual question.

If Bender notices the shake in Andy's voice, he doesn't mention it. He only looks him up and down, pulls out the packet from before and offers him another cigarette.

Andy shouldn't.

He takes it anyway.

"I'm not giving you a spiel about running away from your problems. Frankly, I don't really care either way, but it seems like maybe _you_ do, so..." he trails off.

"So?" Andy can't stop himself from asking. The unlit cigarette dangles awkwardly from between his fingers.

"So maybe figure your shit out without making people feel like shit for it. Guy's been through enough already." _We all have,_ goes unspoken. Andy doesn't need to hear it anyway.

"Yeah. Sure." He doesn't know if he means it, but it's the best he can do right now.

He picks up Bender's lighter from off the ground almost as an afterthought.

*

Wednesday.

You know where you stand when it comes to punching stuff. That's always been Bender's philosophy or whatever.

It doesn't serve him in any way whatsoever when it comes to Claire Standish.

And that should be it, except that Bender's the sort of person who can't let anything go.

He can't let go of an argument. He can't let go of people. He can't let go of his own anger.

All three have recently started being applicable to Claire, the latest in a long line of things he can't let go of. It's not fucking funny how much he can't seem to let it go.

The even funnier thing, in that it's not funny at all, is how he keeps running into her in the hall. Between classes. In the parking lot. During gym. It's the very opposite of funny, in that he wants to laugh just to calm the fuck down.

He's unsettled, is what he is.

It kind of goes like this with Claire: He sees her walking up to Allison on Monday as he's waiting around aimlessly for his ride, watches them getting into Claire's father's car together.

Tuesday is a weird one because he doesn't see her in person, but everywhere around him there seems to be conversations, conversations where she might be the one talking, but mostly people talking _about her_ , as if she's in everyone's mouth all of a sudden for no apparent reason.

The princess is popular, but this is ridiculous. He skips out on class just to have it stop, but it only gets worse after he chooses to ditch in the same decrepit place as Andy. It certainly doesn't help to have the guy around either.

Then it just goes around in circles, this feeling that she's everywhere and nowhere. If Bender didn't know any better, he'd think he was going a little off the deep end.

Punching stuff would certainly help.

It's Wednesday now, and punching stuff has not helped.

It's not as easy anymore to hit someone and think they're worthless when he's been in a room with people who are much too similar to the people he usually wants to punch. People he _has_ punched. Possibly people who are like him in ways he's not sure he wants to think about.

He's a man with a plan. A plan he's come up with while ignoring everything happening during English class. A better use of his time anyway. Any teacher is too astounded by his presence in any given class to dare try engaging him in anything class-related. That's the perfect time to come up with a plan, that plan being _not_ skipping lunch. Same old has been doing him a disservice. Time to change it up. Here's hoping he'd manage the lunch hour sans Claire Standish.

And that should have tipped him off. But he stares at something he believes to be meat for too long only to raise his eyes and make direct eye contact with Claire across the most crowded he's ever seen the cafeteria. She makes with the big doe eyes, but he's too stunned to react in any way, so they stare at each other for longer than should be humanly possible. It's only mildly mortifying.

Homeroom isn't something he'd usually bother with, so he doesn't. But Claire probably doesn't skip. Which is why it comes completely out of the blue to almost walk right into her on his way to the parking lot to smoke.

It shouldn't be a shock, or at least he knows he shouldn't be as obvious as he's probably being about it to Claire's face, but the fact of the matter is, there's no good reason for her to be in this part of the school after the late bell unless she's skipping class, which is a big fuckig shock, unless she's ditching to go to the mall with her so-called friends, and those shitheads are conspicuously absent anyway.

Bender should be suspicious, but he's sort of not. She's not really the sort of person to break rules just for the hell of it without her friends. All she does is what needs to be done to keep up appearances, and there's no one around to impress right now. No one but him. And he's hardly someone she needs to impress. He doubts he's ever been that or ever come anywhere near it.

"May I help you, princess?" The snark is easy. Easy to muster up and easy to use to cover up what he'd actually like to say to her.

"Maybe," she says. She's not smiling, but he's a little off his game by virtue of that one little word.

"How so?" He almost wants to crowd her into a wall or a locker or something, get the upper hand by yelling in her face and storming off before she gets the chance to talk back at him and get her own yelling in, but he's on uneven ground and getting too close will only make him wobble where he stands, figuratively and literally, too, of that he's pretty fucking certain.

She looks him up and down. "Walk me to my locker?"

He shouldn't.

He does.

If there's no one there to see it happen, then he's maybe mostly relieved. He's not sure what Claire is.

*

There's very little to do in a place like Shermer that doesn't involve smoking, smoking up or making out. Bender taken advantage of all three possibilities to make the school days go smooth and end faster.

Ending up smoking plain old cigarettes with Claire Standish under the bleachers isn't any configuration he would have come up with on his own. Not in any reality or fantasy or dream, because what are they doing anyway, what the fuck is this.

They're not talking, that's for sure. Girls want to talk sometimes, which is fine by Bender, as long as it's not all they want to do. Talking has a limited shelf life.

Another thing that has a limited shelf life? Being confused by preppy, popular girls. Bender's attention span isn't the best, and this shit has no chance in hell of flying for very long.

"Mind telling me what we're doing?" he finally asks.

As he's asking it, it occurs to him he probably should have posed that question when Claire led him out of the school after dropping off her books at her locker. Glancing at her face reveals she knows it, too. Figures.

"We're ditching class," she says.

Bender rolls his eyes, but it is pretty simple when she puts it like that. Obvious.

Maybe it's also the perfect excuse to keep smoking their way through most of his packet. He steals them from his dad and his friends, and the local convenience store when there's slim pickings in the house. They haven't caught him red-handed yet, but that's bound to happen soon, and then it'll be hell to pay, but he almost looks forward to being punished for something tangible, something he's actually done, something wrong by most people's standards.

"We are at that," he finally says. She doesn't look as if she'd been expecting a response, but she does smile at him for it. It's a tiny thing, that smile.

He rolls his eyes at her and lights another cigarette. The silence should be even worse than the talking, but he finds half-way through this smoke that it's no so bad.

From here, the school building doesn't look so imposing. He kind of gets it a bit more why someone might get into sports. If he were to care at all about that sort of thing, or be even remotely inclined to practice a sport, he'd maybe even sort of do it for the chance to run around with a clear view of the school, as if they could one day run away from it for good.

He's been tempted before, that's for sure. He's been tempted to run away altogether. The reasons are obvious. He's never had the guts, because he's maybe starting to believe he really is missing those altogether, too, and one day he's going to get out anyway, that's a certainty. Maybe it's that inevitability which is making him stay put for a little while longer. It sure as hell ain't the people and he sure as hell isn't learning anything by staying put.

"Why are you doing it?" she suddenly asks.

He starts at her words. He almost begins to cover it up with more snark and bullshit, but that'd be a fumble he's not willing to make. Instead, he says, "Do what?"

"Letting me…" she trails off.

Then he has to look at her, however much he doesn't want to. "Letting you what?"

She sighs, but she's not a coward, not where it counts. "Letting me getting you to ditch. For this place."

He doesn't tell her he's sat here way too many times doing exactly this. She maybe has a different impression about what his life is like, what he spends his time on, what he's willing to risk getting detentions on. She knows him a little better after Saturday, but it's strikingly obvious how much she doesn't know about what makes him tick.

"It's not so bad, princess," he says. Casual.

She rolls her eyes, but the smile is obvious now. He offers her another cigarette and lights it for her. She lets him.

*

Thursday.

People are assholes. Like, Brian knows this on an existential level.

Exhibit A. Claire says jack-shit to him and graduates to ignoring his very physical presence by the end of Monday's school day. After that, Brian actively avoids her. There's only so much a guy can take when it comes to someone he thought he knew looking right through him.

Exhibit B. Andy skips the classes he shares with Brian. That's more of a douchebag move. Brian's not impressed, but it's to be expected.

Exhibit C. Bender likes beating up people. Big fucking surprise. Brian would rather not be part of the select group of people who've gotten their faces punched in for staring at the guy for too long, thank you very much.

There'd be an Exhibit D, he supposes, but Allison is a weird combination of shadow and invisible girl. Plus, Allison's never actively ignored anyone unless they were ignoring her first. She's a genuine person whom no one much likes, and Brian would totally talk to her in, like, public, but she's nowhere to be seen unless it's a blurry dark figure walking on the other side of the school.

Brian's maybe a little dense.

Finding Allison is also maybe not the best plan he's ever had. He's a smart guy, but prone to bad decision-making. It doesn't feel like it, though.

He tracks her down during lunch. She's in the school parking lot, leaning against the back tires of someone's Beamer, a packed lunch in her lap, legs spread in front of her. Her sketchbook seems to take precedence over eating.

"What's up?" he asks. He's standing right over her, but she doesn't look up.

She must have seen him coming. She has a clear view of the school entrance from where she's sitting.

Brian tries not to take it personally. He's good at that.

Instead, he crouches and goes to sit against the Camaro parked right next to the Beamer. Its back tires are absolutely filthy, and Brian hesitates before leaning against them, but that's only for a few moments before he takes out his own packed lunch.

He bites into his sandwich without any preamble. Allison doesn't set her sketchbook aside or pay him any mind, but he thinks he sees her shoulders relax. His sandwich isn't half bad either.

They don't speak at all. It's nice.

The temptation to babble his way into a one-sided conversation is strong. He tamps it down as best he can. His mouth is busy with his sandwich, which helps, as does the fact Allison is the sort of person who doesn't pressure anyone socially through her very existence. It's exudes the type of non-existence which Brian's brain interprets as him being almost on his own. He's not sure if that's what she's going for, or even wants, but it's what's happening, what he's seen happen before, possibly the reason she has no real friends.

Somehow, it's not so bad.

Being a ghost must have its perks. He's not popular, but he has friends, and with friends come expectations. Pressure. It's different than the pressure someone like Claire or Andy might feel, or even Bender, but Allison's the only one who genuinely must not get that at all. Brian can't say he'd ever envy someone for being invisible, but being a ghost doesn't sound half bad if it means no one expects anything of you, either good or bad.

He's always thought that if he could change lives with anyone, it would be with Andy. Surely Andy. Definitely Claire. Maybe Bender, when he's feeling sour about his life and his parents and his future and his boring friends, but never has he considered Allison. He's suddenly completely and utterly sure no one's considered Allison ever. Not because they'd miss the pressure, but because that's what being a ghost is like, probably. No one considers you enough of a person to want to change lives with you.

Like, Brian's thought about what it's like for him. However much someone might throw it in Claire's face that she's self-centred and conceited, they all think about themselves first just as much as she probably does. It's maybe even normal to have that happen. Putting yourself first is surely some sort of survival instinct.

So he's considered what's it like for him before, and how it could be different, and he's wished it were skewed in his favour at least sometimes. Getting pushed into lockers and being laughed at isn't a picnic certainly. Being popular, in a good way, has to have its perks. Like, no one would do it, no one would wish to be it and work at it, if it were a drag. That's a no-brainer. He'd go for it nine times out of ten because he's not, like, an idiot.

It's weird to think about now, after spending Saturday with the sorts of people he'd kill to be like. Like, he can't consider it without thinking about the shitty parts anymore.

Being a ghost has its shitty parts, too. He side-eyes Allison, who's now munching on an apple, sketchbook put away. The fleshy apple bits turn to mush in her mouth, the sound of her teeth biting down suddenly too loud. He stares straight ahead.

He's never considered being a ghost, but he kind of feels like a ghost now, only it's not what he thought it would be like. Can a ghost be a ghost if it's in the presence of another ghost?

He bites into his sandwich again and tries to enjoy being truly invisible for a few more minutes.

*

Friday.

"Hey."

Bender's surprised to see her, that much is clear.

She knows what people see when they look at her because it's the same thing she's seen reflected in her parents' glazed eyes. If someone ever thought it didn't bother her, then they'd be dead wrong. Bender's eyes are glazed over, though.

"Hey."

The parking lot isn't empty, not yet, and he seems to be waiting for someone. Allison knows it's not her. She also knows it's not Claire, whose dad had to pick her up early for a family thing happening out of town.

"So what do we do?" she asks.

It's Friday. There's nothing _to_ do.

*

Bender walks himself home.

Allison gets bored of waiting around in the parking lot. There's probably an explanation she's not going to get about why she has to walk herself home as well. She's probably better off not knowing the whys. Then she can imagine whatever she wants. Then she won't get disappointed when it's another shitty non-excuse.

It's a blue muscle car which slows down next to her about ten minutes after she loses sight of the school. The passenger's side window is down and Andy's leaning over the console to be nearer the window.

"Need a ride?" he asks.

It should sound like a line. From anyone else it probably would be. Instead, it's earnest and awkward. And she _does_ need a ride.

*

The weird part isn't how he doesn't try to kiss her again. The weird part is more about how he doesn't really speak, and she certainly doesn't, but he smiles at her softly when he pulls up in front of her house, as if this has been exactly what he'd hoped it would be.

She watches him drive off and kind of gets how it probably was something similar for her, too.

*

Monday. Again.

Claire is on a self-destruct mission.

It starts during breakfast. She passes on the black coffee and dry toast, and instead piles on sausages and fried eggs and Eggos onto her plate. Sprinkles cinnamon on top. Then has two glasses of orange juice to top it all off, though running to the bathroom to pee while her father is honking the horn from out front _is_ a little _stressful_.

She has way too much energy in all her classes. Answers a question in English completely by mistake. Just suddenly finds herself speaking the words. It's the correct answer even. She pretends she doesn't notice the looks her friends give her.

The lunch bell rings, and it's easy, so fucking easy, to sneak off to the sports field unnoticed.

She's not trying to make a statement. She's _not_. But she finds Allison easily enough under the north-side bleachers, who offers her a cigarette casually.

"I saved you one," she mutters as Claire takes it.

They sit and smoke, and then stare out onto the field from between the seats, leaning against the supporting posts.

"Ladies," Brian says by way of a greeting. He smells sweet like only pot does. Claire can see his red eyes from where she's sitting, dopey smirk on his face and stance all loose.

She ashes the dregs of her cigarette against a moist patch of ground. "Allison's all out," she says. As if he'd asked for one.

Brian shakes his head and smiles widely.

"Bender's waiting for Andy. He's got more in the glove compartment."

Claire nods and shuffles over to make room. It feels less like a self-destruct mission, and more like the beginnings of friendship. Maybe.

It's only Monday, but it's a start. What else can they do?


End file.
